Facebook strikes US$500m advertising deal with Publicis

In a bid to further bolster its advertising reach, social network Facebook has reportedly struck a US$500m deal with one of the world’s largest advertising companies, Publicis.

According to Ad Age, the deal will be spread across multiple years and will involve the co-production of advertising content across video, data and images across Facebook and its other owned product, Instagram.

While the deal only covers the North American market now, it is expected to expand globally at some point in the future.

If the figure of US$500m is official, this would make it the largest ever agreement between an advertising agency and a technology company to date.

Currently rated the third-largest ad agency in the world, Publicis has a number of media networks spread across its subsidiary companies, such as Starcom MediaVest Group and Zenith Optimedia and have on its books some of the biggest brand names out there, such as Coca-Cola, Walmart and Proctor & Gamble.

Carolyn Everson, vice-president of global marketing solutions at Facebook, said the reach Publicis will now have with the company in North America is almost without comparison.

“When you look at the composition of the entire partnership, there are aspects benefiting Publicis, whether it’s a first look and a competitive advantage of moving quickly on some of these elements.

"This is the first time we have all of the different elements that will allow clients to reach a significant scale of 100m people a day in the US and (specific) audiences within the 100m the client wants to reach."